


A raven and a tiger

by CheshWondaland



Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Because we all know how dumb that choice was, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Getting Together, No Smut, Sleep deprivation made me do it, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29569776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshWondaland/pseuds/CheshWondaland
Summary: Rachel can't be without her best friend.She won't allow it.But her best friend is the one who might lose her.Maybe they really needed to try to communicate for once.
Relationships: Garfield Logan/Raven
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	A raven and a tiger

**Author's Note:**

> This is all from Rachel's point of view. 
> 
> It was probably 2 in the morning when I wrote this and all I want to do is be done with it because I love it in my own way.
> 
> PS I don't own any of the Teen Titans franchise, I just futz with the stuff.

She had him cornered on the fairgrounds, not literally since he was able to run if he wanted, apparently, he didn’t want to though. All she wanted was for the madness to stop so here she was. Rachel attempted to reach out to his paw, he in turn tried to snap off her hand and eat it. Just barely, she recoiled fast enough to keep her appendage. “Not nice, Gar.”

Her hand was cradled against her and she was at a loss for what to do. 

If there were a magic cure-all for Gar, she would use it. 

If there were some way she could help him she would do it. 

But she needed him to want her help in some way shape or form. And even if she didn’t know the right words to say or how to say them, she would still be right next to him trying to bring him back to them. Because not only did the Titans need him, she needed him.

“Gar, I don’t know if you can hear me. But you need to come back and the only way I can do that is by touching you. So please don’t hurt me.” 

She reached out again with her right hand, movements slow and ginger. The tips of his fur touched her fingers when, in a blur, Gar sank his fangs into her forearm. A scream tore out of her throat. The darkness wanted out, slipping from her control, a wayward child seeking destruction for adult matters. She clamped down on it with teeth gritted so hard her gums bled. 

“Really not nice.” She growled out. He wasn’t trying to tear her arm to shreds, merely laying there for her to try to retract the limb, she didn’t. Her left hand found its way to the back of Gar’s furry head and she threw a leg over his back to pin him down the best she could with her meager body weight. “Remember.”

Then she was pushing the darkness through him, flooding his taxed mind with her memories of him. This mindless weapon wasn’t him. This wasn’t him and she had to show him before she fell victim to the amount of blood pooling in his clenched jaws. “Please, Gar. I don’t think I could go without my best friend again.” 

There was the sound of bone cracking and realigning itself, the fangs receded from her arm to form perfect pearly white  _ human _ teeth. The warmth of fur left her pant leg, replaced with smoothness characteristic to skin. She could have cried when he spoke after having spit out her blood. “What, I’m just the best friend?”

And then she was hugging him. Rachel startled when Gar pushed her back. “What?” She was confused. Why was he pushing her away? He stammered in embarrassment before just pointing down at her lap where she was straddling him and where... Oh. Well, that explained it. “Best friends isn’t enough anymore is it?” She nervously stuttered the joke out while taking off her jacket and wrapping it around him hastily. 

He grabbed hold of her right hand and pressed his lips to the bloody mark that was already closing up before licking it. His eyes were staring at her frighteningly, glowing green with simmering power. “I think it never was.”

“Rachel did you- Oh, Oh god.” They both looked at Dick, an intruder of the moment. The reverie is broken, they separate and Gar tightens the hold on the jacket covering what was left of his modesty. Rachel watches him shift awkwardly before looking at Dick and pretending that she hadn’t just been very close to anything with Gar. 

“What do you need me to do?” He pauses like he wants to ask, maybe say something. She narrows her eyes at him, daring him to speak a word about what he’d seen. He coughs into his closed fist, speaking in a semi higher pitch than he had ever before. “Yeah, we need your help with Conner.”

They tie up Conner with the lasso of truth and Rachel’s darkness. She makes eye contact with Dick and then weaves him into her darkness as well, inserting him into the farthest reaches of Conner that she can get to without killing the boy via brain frying. 

It’s a waiting game. Or so she thinks until Dick needs a little guidance. “Find the light, Dick.” The prison of Conner’s consciousness is broken wide open and Dick recedes from the dark, giving her a nod. She lets Conner go before stretching her legs and arms which have grown stiff. 

Everything is fine. Or at least it’s all fine until one of the rides starts to collapse and Donna rushes to hold it aloft in an effort to protect the citizens in the area. Rachel runs after her, by no means is she as fast. It feels like she’s already had this happen, a crippling version of deja vu. She doesn’t bow beneath the sensation, in fact, she doesn’t bow under the immense weight she catches in lieu of Donna. The electricity sears her synapses, hands charring with the heat. 

Donna pushes it from Rachel’s hands, sending her teetering onto her back. It hurts, burns, drowns her. Her vision blackens around the edges, it invades the parts she could see like the webs of a spider spiraling outward. 

Hovering over her are Kory, Dick, and Gar. Unknowingly she reaches out and touches Gar’s face, she can’t feel it, can’t feel anything except the remnants of ice that had once overburdened her veins. Tears fall on her skin and she can finally feel that at least. She smiles at the family who found her. The love that had found her. 

She smiles. 

In a few days, she sincerely wishes she’d just tried to use the darkness rather than her physical prowess to negate the electrified failure of a carnival ride. The other Titans at least visit her weekly in between their missions. Gar opts to stay with her daily though. 

He cooks her food, changes her iv bags, and generally takes care of her in all the ways she’d never really been taken care of. He’s constantly talking with her about the going’s on. If it’s a robbery, he describes it floridly. A homicide, he goes in-depth with the backstory. An epic fight, he goes on about it and even adds on sound effects in his goofy little way. 

He’s there. He’s the only one that’s always there and she doesn’t know the reason behind it. Quite frankly she doesn’t care because he walks in and she can’t help but smile at him. She can’t control how happy he makes her, and from how animated he gets while talking she can tell she makes him happy too. 

“So, are you up for some video games?” She’d never played video games before. Probably for good reason because she never could control her darkness when she did certain activities. She had never even participated in PE because of it, her mom, the only mom that mattered, had told her that she should keep from strenuous exercise. Something about adrenaline? 

She throws her legs off the side of the bed that has the iv stand and braces herself on the edge. Gar tries to stop her but he doesn’t try too hard, knowing that she could easily stop him from pushing her back into bed. “Could we go on a walk instead?”

He bites his lip uncertainly and she was vaguely worried he would immediately say no. “Are you sure? I mean, you just got electrocuted how long ago?” 

His question had her standing and hugging him. “Gar, it’s been nearly a month. I should be good to at least go to that cafe down the street.” 

Rachel was all smiles until Gar pulled away in what seemed to be shame. “I don’t think I can go there anymore.”

“What’s wrong?” He glanced at her before focusing his attention on a button of his jacket. 

“The massacre there? That was me.”

“Massacre?” It took a second to understand what Gar was saying and when it finally did make sense she held his face in her hands. She hadn’t thought he’d get over what had happened any time soon and it sickened her to know she was right. “That wasn’t your fault.”

She threaded her fingers into his hair before pulling him into the crook of her neck in comfort. “But it’s alright to cry about it.” His breathing had hitched, pausing only long enough for his breath to warm and tears to roll down his cheeks, onto her neck. 

His feelings were so precious, untainted, that it was a crime that someone had forced him to kill someone. He killed before, yes, but the difference was that he’d done that because of what had happened before that. Torture was not what this boy deserved and now he was burdened with the scars of mental torture.

They sat with black coffee and a breakfast spread in front of them. It was a diner that was stuck in the recesses of San Fran. Rachel looked at Gar over the lip of her mug, he was all puffy eyes and remorse. It made her want to tear Cadmus a new one all over again. The company had already been struck a blow by the escape of Conner. 

She set her mug down and scrunched her nose at the bitterness. Sugar, lots of sugar was going in that bitter cesspool of a steaming beverage. Gar cleared his throat, distracting Rachel from her task of drowning her coffee in sweetener. He was looking out the window next to them, there wasn’t anything to really look at though. He really was feeling  _ bad _ . 

“Want to see a trick?” He turned his head to look at her, eyes nearly unseeing with how glossed over they were. 

Rachel lifted her hand to her mouth and  _ spit _ a glob out only to set it on the table. The little dark blob was just sitting there, motionless. Then she poked it and it was no longer a blob, it was a tiny man. She was feeling proud of herself up until Gar leaned in and whisper-growled at her. “Rachel, you shouldn’t be doing this here.”

Where once there was a bright smile now sat a small frown. Above that was a sad pair of indigo eyes. A pair of slightly rough hands clasped thee ones which rested on her mug. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just….”

After a minute and a half, he still hadn’t spoken and had taken his hands off hers and laid them on the grimy tabletop. Rachel could clearly see that he was conflicted in a way that was unfamiliar to him. They were teenagers after all, and god knows how hard life was when your brain was doped on hormones. “You don’t have to say it, you can just feel it.” She gave him a sheepish smile that seemed to loosen up the tension in his muscles. His hands were placed in her outstretched palms, gripping to slot her dry hands in his larger hold. It was nice.

She closed her eyes and pushed her awareness into their connected hold, it was a smooth transition fuelled by the trust they held for one another. You didn’t get far without trust and with them, that rule of thumb was even more so.

It didn’t surprise her that the first emotion that hit her was worry, for what, she didn’t know nor did she know  _ why _ . She followed the connection to almost crippling fear, fear of being a monster, fear of an inability to protect, and a fear of rejection. There was a split in connection and she had to choose which one to follow. 

One was like a black spider silk thread, she knew that was the cause of this fear, Gar’s traumas. She knew to stay away from that one or else she may harm him terribly, she never wanted to hurt him deliberately or accidentally. In addition, the mind was fragile and anything she did could be irreversible.

All that was left was a thick rope dripping some kind of weird red slime. It looked like the slime was blood but it was actually more like pink lip gloss, sticky and clinging. She gathered some in her hand and brought it to her nose for a sniff. It smelled like honey and freshly brewed coffee. She took it to her mouth and licked it. It tasted like pain, ocean breeze, tears, happiness. She couldn’t tell what it was but the taste was enough to make her curious so she followed the rope until she was looking at some Lovecraftian horror doused in an unhealthy amount of bright cheerful colors and light.

There was what looked to be a hearty tree, it twisted in on itself like ouroboros and it had maws peeking out where it chowed down on things as she was watching it. It looked like images were flooding into it, feeding it. She looked around to find all the  _ walls  _ were just gray clouds roving as a boundary and the memories were coming in from a small incision in that boundary. 

When she caught one paper-thin memory in her hand and examined it Rachel felt a sort of surrealism. Everything clicked once she looked at the picture of her with eyes shut tight and a confused curl to the corner of her mouth. She let it go, a gasp escaped her and she couldn’t stop herself from approaching the malformed trunk of the tree. With a hand on the tree, she took a deep breath as it all started to make sense. Then she was back, in reality, holding Gar’s hand while her heart twisted and her stomach jumped into her throat.

“You won’t lose me.” His eyes widened in confusion with an almost tilt. “I love you too so don’t you dare feel afraid of me leaving you in any way shape or form.” He opened his mouth as if to rebuke what she had said before he sat back and placed his hands on his temples. 

“You know, we could count this as our first date.” He’s looking at her before nodding like a broken bobblehead and then she’s smiling wider than ever. “That, that’d be great.”

A raven and a tiger. Who would have thought? 

**Author's Note:**

> Kory won that bet and all the other Titans forked over $20 dollar bills. Dick tried to steal his contribution back, only to fail when Kory snu-snu attacked him. He didn’t regret his honorable death. XD
> 
> I just had to write this the moment I finished watching Titans, like a dummy.
> 
> Kudo, Subscribe to me, Bookmark. Don't be afraid to comment either, I don't bite much(I had to make this joke for my own enlightenment).


End file.
